Associate Director of Paid Media

USA (Hybrid)

$82K/yr – $93K/yrSenior Level5+ years expFull time

Posted 23 hrs ago

Job Summary

Own and scale the POD’s performance and delivery across university accounts, lead a senior paid media team, and drive strategic campaigns and partner outcomes.

  • Lead hiring and onboarding for the POD
  • Drive cross-channel paid media campaigns and account end-to-end ownership

Job Description

Responsibilities

  • Own the performance and delivery quality of the POD, accountable to the Global Paid Media Director for KPIs, service standards, reporting quality, and partner outcomes across all assigned university accounts.
  • Directly manage the Senior Paid Media Manager and, through them, the full POD structure, setting team priorities, running formal performance reviews, and developing each layer of the team with intent.
  • Lead hiring and onboarding for the POD, owning role profiles for new hires, contributing to interview processes, and making sure new starters are set up for success from day one.
  • Represent the POD in cross-POD leadership discussions, contributing to organization-wide standards, KPI frameworks, and operating model decisions.
  • Set and maintain POD-level operating standards across quality assurance, campaign documentation, reporting, and tooling, holding the Senior Paid Media Manager accountable for consistent enforcement.
  • Own the campaign performance review cycle for the highest-tier accounts, preparing the strategic narrative and presenting alongside the Strategic Leader.
  • Collaborate with the Global Paid Media Director on account assignments, bringing informed input on account complexity, team capacity, and partner priority.
  • Build, launch and optimize paid media campaigns across search and social, including Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit, DV360 and Snapchat, for an assigned portfolio of university partners.
  • Own your accounts end-to-end: build with precision, launch on time, optimize with intent, and report with clarity.
  • Complete all required quality assurance processes before any campaign goes live. No exceptions, no shortcuts.

Requirements

  • Bachelor's degree in marketing, business, communications, or a related field.
  • 5+ years of experience in digital marketing, paid media, and performance marketing.
  • 2+ years of experience managing and developing individual contributors or digital marketing teams.
  • Full cross-channel expertise across paid search, paid social, tracking and analytics.
  • Proven track record leading senior partner-facing conversations and presentations.
  • Experience managing complex, multi-account portfolios at scale.
  • Strong people leadership across coaching, feedback, and formal performance management.

Preferred

  • Experience at a digital performance agency.
  • Background in higher education marketing or familiarity with EAB products.
  • Experience leading cross-functional teams across multiple business areas.
  • Familiarity with Hybrid's operating model, tooling and reporting approach.
  • Commercial acumen, able to identify growth signals and brief senior stakeholders persuasively.
  • Experience building team-level KPI frameworks and quality benchmarks.
  • Commitment to embracing a continual learning environment and contributing to a dynamic and welcoming culture of fairness, authenticity, and belonging in support of EAB's mission, values, and aspiration.

Benefits

  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance plans; dependents and domestic partners eligible
  • 20+ days of PTO annually, in addition to paid firm and floating holidays
  • Daytime leave policy for community service and flextime for fitness activities (up to 10 hours per month each)
  • 401(k) retirement savings plan with annual discretionary company matching contribution
  • Health savings account, healthcare and dependent care flexible spending account, and pre-tax commuter plans
  • Employee assistance program with counseling services and resources available to all employees and immediate family
  • Wellness programs including gym discounts, incentives to promote healthy living, and family access to the leading app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation
  • Fertility treatment coverage and adoption or surrogacy assistance
  • Paid parental leave with phase back to work program for birthing and non-birthing parents
  • Access to milk shipping service to support nursing employees during business travel
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EAB

At EAB, we are insight-chasers and innovators, and our teams are as diverse as the problems we solve. For four decades, we’ve delivered extraordinary results, and we proudly support 2,800+ organizations from K-12 to college to career. Together with our partners, we can solve education’s toughest challenges. Our mission is to make education smarter and our communities stronger, and we strive to be a trusted partner to everyone we serve, in turn helping thousands of schools and millions of students thrive.Connect with us! Subscribe to our EAB Briefing, blogs, and more: http://pages.eab.com/Subscribe-to-EAB.htmlSubscribe to our podcast- Office Hours with EAB on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/officehours-with-eab/sets/office-hours-with-eab/

Founded in 2007
Washington, District of Columbia, USA
2.2K employees (309 in marketing)

Salaries

Posted range

$82K/yr – $93K/yr

Taken straight from the job posting.

Paid Media median pay in the United States

$93K/yr

Most earn $75K to $120K. Based on 2,256 salaries, including bonus and equity.

See all EAB salaries

Marketing Team

Marketing Team Size
239 (11% of company)
Median Tenure
5.6 years
Marketing Roles Posted (Last 30 Days)
1

Traffic Signals

Monthly Visitors
3.1M
Monthly Google Ads Budget
$7.4K
Traffic Source Mix
Search
10.5%
Direct
62.2%
Referral
26.1%
Social
0.3%
Paid
0.8%

Headcount Trend

Current headcount: ~2.2K

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